This invention relates to a bridle for horses and more particularly to a bitless bridle of the hackamore type which applies pressure to the head of the horse in a novel manner in order to control the horse during training, riding, showing or other activities.
There are many situations in which the use of the conventional bit type bridle are highly disadvantageous. Many horses tend to chew the bit, have sore mouths, balk at the bit so that excessive pressure must be applied in order to obtain control, salivate excessively when the bit is in their mouth, or, in untrained and unbroken horses, misbehave and rear their heads so that the bit cannot be placed into their mouths.
For these reasons the hackamore type bridle is often used to break horses or to use on horses that have mouth problems, not allowing the use of a bit. It is also known that a bit in the horses mouth often causes cutting of the tongue, chipping of the teeth and other common bruises which are caused by jerking or by inexperienced riders.
Hackamore bridles having rigid sidepieces are known wherein applying pressure to the reins will cause a pivoting action to take place. The sidepieces are usually constructed such that an actual pivoting around a pivotal point takes place. These bridles are disadvantageous in that they apply pressure only to the nose and/or under the chin of the horse when there are other areas which are as sensitive and which also can aid in the control of the horses actions. Typical of these bridles are those illustrated in Gradberg U.S. Pat. No. 1,116,691; Reed U.S. Pat. No. 2,471,121; Newman U.S. Pat. No. 2,804,740; Sauter U.S. Pat. No. 2,931,154; and Stern et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,458,971.